Category: Opinions

The Reckoning

Today, the alarm clock went off and I groaned. Champagne, ham, prime rib, potatoes of all sort and way too many desserts slowed my senses and made me weak.

A Christmas hangover if there ever was one.

But this is December 27th. Christmas is over.

I knew what I needed to do. It was time to confess my sins.

Rising from my warm slumber, I put on the appropriate raiments and went to face the only entity that could absolve me from my indiscretions.

TM* looked at me with that one cold eye. He knew what I’d been up to. The last time we’d visited had been eight days ago.

Eight days.

A lot of bad behavior can happen in eight days.

A lot of bad behavior DID happen in eight days.

There was no turning back now. I entered the confessional and slowly began my ablutions.

The iPod went into my ears and shuffle fired up. No need for a hymnal, I know the words by heart.

Five minutes passed. Hey, I thought to myself, this is not so bad!

At about the fifteen minute mark, my left calf piped up. “Pardon me, but with all that booze you had, we’re a skosh dehydrated. Potassium low and all that. I believe I’ll go ahead and cramp right up.”

I said to myself, “just keep walking.”

At about the twenty five minute mark, my lower back chimed in. “Yes, yes, cramping does seem to be the thing to do. Huzzah!”

“Just keep walking.”

Then my feet had something to say, with a backing chorus from my knees.

“Just keep walking.”

My hip flexors asked, in a rather snotty tone, “Why *exactly* are we doing this?”

The very sweat glands of my body began exhaling stale booze and toxins.

I replied by turning my iPod up louder and putting an ever more determined look on my face and then I…

Just kept walking.

At the fifty minute mark, I’d said all the metaphorical Hail Marys and Glory be to the Fathers I could manage. I’d done my act of contrition.

I was absolved.

Kind of.

I suspect that tomorrow, I’ll need to go confess again.

You know, New Year’s Eve is just there on the horizon.

And the confessional is waiting.

*TM = Treadmill

An Oldie but a Goodie

This post first appeared on the blog in December 11, 2007. It’s one of my all time favorite posts. Fixed a few broken links, made some minor edits and away we go! Everything is still very true. Happy Holidays!

Top ten things I miss about Christmas in New Mexico

1) Annual shopping trip to Old Town. A mom and me tradition. Every year I’d get to pick out an ornament that was mine. I now have all those ornaments in a Thom McAnn shoebox that, yes, Sunday night I opened and hung them all on my tree. They are like a history of my life. I remember buying most of them and it gives me a good sense of continuity to have them on my tree.

2) Luminarias. I always was the one to make them at my house. My mom would drive me to an empty lot to dig up two buckets worth of dirt and I’d fold bags, place candles and light them. It was my job and I loved every folded bag and every candle and every small emergency when the bag caught on fire in the wind. I miss real luminarias.

3) The Bugg House, which, sadly, is no more. My sister lived over on Prospect and we’d go for a Christmas Eve walk in the evening to take a look at the outstanding display of holiday spirit. When I wwent to Winrock Mall to shop, I’d always swing by the Bugg house to take a look. No one does lights like the Buggs did.

4) Neighbors bringing over a plate of fresh made tamales as a Christmas gift. When there are three generations of Hispanic women in a kitchen with some masa and some shredded pork, magic happens. Yum! I also miss that people would bring tamales to work in a cooler and sell them to coworkers. I was always good for a dozen or more.

5) A ristra makes a good Christmas gift. I’ve given. I’ve received. I love ’em. They’d become a moldy mess here…and that makes me sad.

6) Biscochitos. My love for these is well documented.

7) Sixty-five degrees and warm on Christmas Day. Growin up, I think one year there was actually snow on the ground for the 25th. But it was melted by the end of the day. Oh Fair New Mexico, how I love your weather.

8) Christmas Eve midnight Mass in Spanish with the overpowering scent of frankincense filling up the overly warm church. Pure torture for a small child, but oh how I’d belt out the carols… And when we came home we could pick one present and open it. Gah! The torture of picking just one!

9) New Mexico piñon, gappy, scrawny Christmas trees that cost $15 at the Flea Market and were cut from the top of a larger tree just that morning. Look, to my mind, it ain’t a tree unless you are using low hanging ornaments to fill the obvious gaps. These fluffy overly full trees just ain’t my bag. If you aren’t turning the ‘bad spot’ to the wall, you paid too much for your tree.

10) Green chile stew for Christmas Eve dinner and posole for New Year’s. My mouth waters. It’s weep worthy. I can taste the nice soft potatoes in the stew, the chicken broth flavored just right…ouch! And posole to bring you luck with red chile and hunks of pork. Yeah……

*sigh* Now I’m homesick.

Which is not to say I don’t have happy holidays where I live now…but sometimes I feel melancholy. And that’s what the holidays are for, right?

Image via.

This Is What Being The New Kid Looks Like

New job + No vacation accrued = One of maybe eight people at work on Christmas Eve Eve.

This is the first floor of the parking garage at 9:00am (usually packed by then). I parked in the most coveted spot.

Don’t feel too bad for me, though. My executive boss-type guy said I could leave at 1:00.

Until then, the halls are pretty empty. Helloooooooooooooo….?

In Lieu Of a Bonus

Yesterday, after a oh-so-very-long day at work, I did what busy worker bees have done for years…

I went home and whined to my spouse.

The Good Man was very considerate, listened to my tale of woe, made sure I had dinner and tucked me into bed with a “maybe tomorrow will be better.”

Well, he was right. Tomorrow, now known as today, has been *much* better.

The tipoff that today might be a bit different began when I saw a strange truck in the parking lot, located in one of the front spots.

So, you know, curious as I am, I made my over to the assigned area and got in line.

After about a half hour of waiting, I got to see what the hubbub was all about.

Yeah. They call that the Commissioner’s Trophy. You know, nothing much…they just hand it out to the team that wins the World Series**.

No big deal right? Just a hunk of metal.

Let me tell you this, I’ve been within inches of an Oscar, a Grammy and two Emmys.

They got nothing on this little beauty. NOTHING! The Commissioner’s Trophy glows and shimmers and giggles with glee.

Or maybe that was me giggling. Hard to know.

Anyhow, when I got to the front of the line, I handed my camera to a decidedly NON photographer so she could take a blurry and out of focus shot of me with the trophy.

Forgive me readers, this is a terrible photograph. But we were only allotted one and this is it.

Just know this…blurry though it may be, make no mistake, I’m very, very happy.

(why do my eyes look so funky? Gah! Couldn’t I look cute for just ONE minute, but noooo, geek girl looks geeked out)

My employer pays reasonable but not large salaries and rare bonuses. But this, this was TOTALLY worth that long, mean, very bad day yesterday!

**To my readers outside the US, I do realize that to call a sporting event a “World Series” in which twenty nine US and one Canadian team competes is rather audacious.